Maine boatbuilders row to Mystic

A group of apprentice boatbuilders from The Apprenticeshop, a traditional boatbuilding and seamanship school in Rockland, Maine, row their 29-foot replica Ebenezer Leonard-design whaleboat through the Mystic River drawbridge on Friday en route to Mystic Seaport.

Published June 29. 2013 12:01AM | Updated June 29. 2013 2:55PM

Mystic - A group of apprentice boatbuilders from The Apprenticeshop, a traditional boatbuilding and seamanship school in Rockland, Maine, row their 29-foot replica Ebenezer Leonard-design whaleboat through the Mystic River drawbridge on Friday en route to Mystic Seaport.

The school is among a number of outside organizations that built whaleboats for the restored Charles W. Morgan, and the students decided to deliver the whaleboat by rowing and sailing it 310 miles from Rockland to Mystic.

The seven students and two instructors successfully navigated with an escort vessel along the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts, including a transit of the Cape Cod Canal, before fog and rising seas in Point Judith, R.I., necessitated that the boat be trailered to Stonington, where the students completed the trip up the Mystic River.